Alabama

Barb Bondy (left) talks with a friend about the exhibit of artwork and photographs done by Alabama state prisoners as part of the Alabama Prison Arts + Education project. (AL.com file photo)
(JOE SONGER)

AUBURN, Alabama – Thanks to a national grant, inmates across Alabama will continue to sketch, take photos and have their artwork published through the Alabama Prison Arts + Education project.

The program received a $55,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, according to a news release.

Launched in 2003, the Alabama Prison Arts + Education project is based in the College of Human Sciences at Auburn University. In a partnership with the Alabama Department of Corrections, it provides inmates at 10 correctional facilities the opportunity to take semester-long arts, sciences and English classes.

They hope to serve even more facilities in 2015, Program Director Kyes Stevens said.

"We believe it's important for the adult prison population to gain a quality education, and also to build a relationship with learning that will continue to grow for the rest of their lives," she said in a news release.

This marks the seventh time the project has received an NEA grant, which Stevens says is the "backbone of the programming." This grant will fund programming through 2015 and the production of the next anthology of student work. An anthology is produced and sold every two years.

"Art classes provide a place for those who want to learn to come and develop critical thinking and processing skills that are not only relevant to making good art, but can also impact individuals in other aspects of their lives," Stevens said.